waiting for a breakdown
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Why'd Bunta really get a blue Impreza anyway?


**fandom: Initial D**  
 **title: waiting for a breakdown**  
 **pairing: bunta + ?,**  
 **rating: pg-13**  
 **description – Why'd Bunta really get a blue Impreza anyway?**

 **Disclaimer – Initial D isn't mine. 'Save Me' is part of the ID Soundtrack.  
**

I turn on the radio and it plays:  
 **"I'm all alone  
Keep on trying to think what was so wrong  
Keep on trying to analyze my love  
Deep in my heart I can't cry and going on..."**

My cigarette drops into the cold, soft tofu I carry in my hand.

I can get through a lot of things, but not this…  
Not this song…

At that moment, the usual sleepy expression is erased by wide eyes.

All my composure is momentarily gone.

 **waiting for a breakdown.  
By miyamoto yui  
**

"I knew I shouldn't have done it…but eh."

With shrugged shoulders, he tilted his head in that indifferent way he always gave when things 'couldn't be helped'. It was that same apathetic face that always masked the feelings that would later cause more consternation from others towards him than he'd realize.

He drove up the snake's tail of a mountain path at a godforsaken number he chose to dutifully ignore.

His motto of life: Select importance. Everything? Irrelevant.

Temptation had made into the core of his senses, making them dull to guilt. That hum of the engine made such a beautiful melody in between his temples.

Yes, so, he had stolen the car. Or rather, he titled it 'carefully borrowing from a good friend without asking'.

There was something very ironic about this angular, blue metallic car.

He knew nothing about mechanics or the makes of cars. It just looked pretty, just like the girls he was used to dating. Like them, this one was a certain 'type': A 'look' that he couldn't ignore. It was like the line between modest reality and dirty fantasy: your body had to live with one but your sanity couldn't live without the other.  
And similar yet to all these girls, they were all very voluptuous, but nothing else. Empty hearts that nothing could be built about. There was nothing to talk about that blew him away.

But this car…  
It couldn't talk to him in the normal sense, but it had everything else.

It made him want to drive her despite the fact that his pride wouldn't allow a simple utterance of "Won't you let me take her out for a spin?" Of course, being his friend, that man would be most unpredictable.  
That white doctor's coat was a shield of reason, but that man forced himself to be contained in his hospital.

 _But still, I envied him.  
At so young an age, how could he know what he truly wanted to be without anyone telling him?_

What was left for me? I was too bored with school even though I knew exactly what to answer the teachers. And sports? Too childish for me to compete seriously.

Everyone was still looking for what they wanted. I already knew what I wanted to give it to, but that was far as I could go.

That was how it was here: You knew the answer you should give. And then you knew the answer that would whet your taste.  
In this society, you could never satisfy and nor could you ever be satisfied. Was it any wonder that people broke under the unspoken, but silently well-known pressure?

Yes...all that noise in my head...

I didn't ever want to become a slave like that. I wouldn't bow to anyone.

This car with its gasoline veins made him fidgety with obsession. This smooth, blue machine vexed him as if touching it would make him more than human. Did it really have that kind of power?  
"Yes," it kept saying. And finally, he answered, "I'm a stupid kid. I have to know, Lady."

Anticipating the hardest turn with the bright yellow caution tape and the blackest arrows, he pressed on the gas pedal and changed gears as he slightly pressed the brake. Floating, he turned the steering wheel.

Skriiiitch~!

Then, he pressed the accelerator once more.

Because it was his first time, he had broken the rear lamp on the left side of the car.

He smirked to himself, but sighed. "I'll pay even more dearly for that."  
Still, he had to reach the top.

When he did, he turned into the abandoned parking lot of the observatory. Clicking off the engine, everything became instantly silent. Suddenly, with the lights going off, everything around him was filled with darkness and the frigid wind blew slightly through the small openings of the windows.

But he could feel the car smiling. Finally, she had been used the way she should have been. She wasn't just a passenger car. She was a sports one.

He could feel the beating of his heart wanting to collapse from its owner's recklessness.

He had done many things, but this beat everything!  
It was the most exhilarating feeling in the world!

But he knew the cost was more than burning up his soul or giving up his life to near-death experiences…  
This all from a black-road-rubber-tasting kiss.

He held onto the steering wheel until the leather ropes made marks into his fingers. When he let go, he immediately got out of the car. Closing the door, he dug into his pockets for a pack of smokes. Unfortunately, that's why he was out and forgot about it when he took the car from the hospital parking lot.

At that moment, someone laughed at him from the other side of the road. Ringing clearly in his ears, he almost didn't want to look up. With an impassive face, he raised his head and looked at someone crossing the road. The doctor was taking off his immaculate coat and putting it properly over his left arm. Next, he reached into his blouse pocket for a pack of cigarettes. "Mild Seven," it said with its bright white and light blue box almost making it appear more beautiful than it should have been for something that slowly killed you.

 _When the familiar figure stood before me, he held out the cigarette and lit it with his lighter. Taking a small drag of it, he took it out of his mouth and handed it over to me._

I turned my head away without a word.  
I didn't know how to feel, but there was one thing that I was sure of: I hated the smirk that always appeared on his face whenever he was with me.

Only to me. No one else ever saw this smug face.

Not even his wife knew this poisonous streak.  
He hid it that well.

Everyone always saw the doctor that nodded his head so kindly it made me so sick to watch him. They all knew the smiling one: The generous one that gave the assurance of "I'll do my best". But I knew. Only I knew that that was a lie.  
He was as reckless as me but he held it inside and it was driving him crazy to see me do as I please. Why did he always seem to know everything?!

Yet, I even more bitter towards him for being better than me in the one thing I was interested in.  
Even girls, drinking, and sex couldn't beat street racing.

"I can't finish this. She'll kill me."  
"When were you ever alive, Sensei?" I slapped the hand away and the cigarette fell onto the ground. Calmly, he stamped it down with the heel of his shoe.

"Always have to be so perfect, don't we?" I spitefully said. I knew exactly where to strike.  
The more and more he didn't say anything about the car, the angrier I became. For once, pathetically, I wanted to wipe his face clean of that grin that always mocked me. It was always imprinted before my eyes.

I couldn't ever turn away from that penetrating gaze: So far in thought yet so near it seared my skin.

Class rank, grades, sports meets, awards, leadership titles…  
We played our roles separately yet at the same pace to make sure the other was watching cautiously, to make sure not to forget.

What he couldn't do, I would do. What he could, I would do the opposite just to spite him.

"Aren't you going to even comment on the car?" I pointed at it, particularly at where I felt guilty about hurting such a beauty, but wanting even more to dig a wound into his whole being.

I was ashamed of my frustration, but couldn't I ever surpass him?

He sneezed in such a girly way I rolled my eyes. I gave a deep sigh, not trying to laugh at how he could always make me so upset and just do stupid stuff like that perfectly to make me more confused than ever.

"Here." I gave him my old white scarf. It was near-off white from age.  
"Pathetic. I tell people not to get sick during the holidays and I do things like this." His deep, soft voice could sometimes betray a warm tone.

At that moment, he closed his eyes and it seemed like everything was in slow motion. That brief moment of mercy was gone. His bangs fell in front of his face and I knew something was going to happen.

Now, more than ever, I couldn't read his feelings.

But I could feel them. They hurt like when I sat beside him when he was trying to teach me how to drift on the first corner going down Akagi.

I stepped back in fear.

I lifted my eyes with facetious pride.

"That car…" Then, he stopped.  
My face became stone cold in the winter air, becoming frostier per minute. I could see his breath crystallize before me.  
I stepped forward and my mixed emotion bubbled up. They tumbled over. I took his collar between my fingers and shook him back and forth but he didn't even wince. "Doesn't anything ever move you?! Why would you buy such a thing knowing you would never use it?!"

His calm eyes thoroughly looked into mine and I became instantly petrified. I couldn't move anymore and it wasn't because of the cold. "What's the opposite of wrong, Fujiwara? If you make the 'right' decisions all your life, what's the opposite of wrong? Tell me."

This tone cut a wound into me. The curse was reflected back to me.  
His tone wasn't vulnerable or weak. It was humble.

And I gulped as we watched each other.  
We could not cry. And we could not be free.  
Slowly, I began to understand and quickly, he wanted to not comprehend anything anymore.

"Why did you come here then if not for the car?"

Then, he opened his lips to show his perfectly white teeth. That smile I hated so much was now meant for me: The Audience of One.

Brushing his cold cheek with my warm one, he whispered into my ear while pushing an envelope into my hand. "I thought you would really runaway from me this time."

My eyes opened widely and he turned around to put on his white lab coat on once more. I watched him and tears were on my eyes, but I wouldn't allow myself to shed one tear.

Not even for you, Sensei.

When I opened the folder, he was long gone. The taillights left a slight glare and sped out of the way. I found a note that said: "Don't look back. Don't ever hesitate. Don't you ever think twice."

At that bottom, he wrote in English: "Stay the same. Always."

We had known each other since we were children, but I never saw my best friend ever again. Even if he was only on the other side of the mountain.

It was later that I found out that there was a big uproar in the hospital when he left. A patient under critical care had gone into surgery but he was unavailable. Luckily, he came back in time to save his reputation.

But all that time, he had known.  
He had known everything.

And this was where I purposely put on blinders to see before me, so I wouldn't see him clearly watching me from the sidelines. Shamelessly.

From then on, I drove that car to surpass the driver he would have become.

 ***/*/*/*/***  
And many people ask me why I didn't become a professional, I just take a drag of my cigarette…

"I know who you are," a scrawny voice squeaked from the crowd.  
I blinked my eyes. Were my eyes deceiving me? Why would a child come here so late at night?!

"I will be back, so please still be driving when I grow up."

Those eyes…  
I nodded my head slowly.

Years later, the same child came back when my son was at school. In his prestigious high school uniform, he skipped class to see me at my tofu shop. "My father told me you were the best but I did my own researching and…"

"I'll only show you once, but after it, we don't know each other."

Those feelings had come back again. The ones that hurt.  
The ones that I numbed myself to years ago…

"Something wrong?"

My stupid son is heading out to deliver tofu down the mountain when he turns his head to look at me. Half out of the door and half inside the house, like his usual indecisive self, he can't decide if he should verbalize his thoughts.

 **Once in a life  
You can meet a boy and feel him right  
You can meet a boy that gives you a light  
Once in a life, he can makes you feeling fine**

"Mm?" I feign innocence. I throw the tofu away and look at him, unmoved.

It is rare for him to make any kind of comprehensible conversation in the morning anyway.

 **With you and me together,  
I can't say goodbye to you  
You were my world  
Baby, you killed me in a moment with a knife and a rose in your smile  
Please**

"Why'd you pick blue for the Impreza? I thought since you got white because mom liked it, you'd get another car with the same color."

"Reminds me of my first car."

 **Save me, baby, I need you please  
Save me now, I don't believe you want to leave me alone  
'cause baby I can't survive you got to keep me alive  
So, baby, save me I need your love  
To keep my faith and be strong  
Now we can try again to get along  
'cause baby I can't survive, please, baby, Save me**

"Ah." Listlessly, he nods and leaves.

I go into the living room and take the envelope and splash the contents inside as if they are a Las Vegas card deck on a gambling table. Every important document in my life is kept inside this ratty yellow envelope. Of course, it's all out of order: birth certificate, car insurance of the Savannah, marriage license…

 **Once in a life  
There's a reason to get up and fight  
There's a reason that keeps you alive  
Once in a life everything could be all right**

A picture of his victory down Akagi at age 18 and he crazily lifted me up. He was the poor genius with his lab coat (he was wearing it because he had to rush off to volunteer that night) and I was the spoiled, rich son who didn't want to go into business.  
Yet, I never saw him smile like THAT before or after.

 **With you and me together,  
I can't say goodbye to you  
You were my world  
Baby, you killed me in a moment with a knife and a rose in your smile  
Please**

The torn corner of that picture touches an article of when my son won his first trophy on the circuit. It is then that I notice that the person in the crowd clapping his hands also had a white lab coat…

…looking exactly like what Sensei did then.

 **Save me, baby, I need you please  
Save me now, I don't believe you want to leave me alone  
'cause baby I can't survive you got to keep me alive  
So, baby, save me I need your love  
To keep my faith and be strong  
Now we can try again to get along  
'cause baby I can't survive, please, baby, Save me**

His son looks exactly like him: The reserved recklessness waiting for a breakdown.

It makes me uneasy.  
I go to look at my tofu, but not before lighting a Mild Seven and putting it into a corner of my mouth.

Stepping out of the shop for a moment, I instantly notice the Impreza is gone today.  
You shouldn't ever live in the past. You shouldn't ever look back whenever you are lost, you always seem to go back to that place where you first changed. That's where everyone goes mentally. Against caution and reason, you will always go back there.

Even me. I am not immune to it.

Yes, even though he confused me, through the heart of the chaos, he made me feel peaceful.

 **I can't say goodbye to you  
You were my world  
Baby you killed me in a moment with a knife and a rose in your smile  
Please**

 **Save me, baby, I need you please**  
 **Save me now, I don't believe you want to leave me alone**  
 **'cause baby I can't survive you got to keep me alive**  
 **So, baby, save me I need your love**  
 **To keep my faith and be strong**  
 **Now we can try again to get along**  
 **'cause baby I can't survive, please, baby, Save me**

I imagine the colors on all of my cars.  
"I knew I shouldn't have done it, but you can't help making the same mistake twice…  
But is it a mistake if it's on purpose?"

I go back into the kitchen to look for another station with the remix of that song: the one that played when he taught the very thing I first fell in love with in the world.

 **Owari.**  
 **-**  
 **Author's note:** I don't know why, but I suddenly got this thought in my head about Ryousuke's dad and Bunta. And then, I wanted to make a person where Ryousuke's dad had a dual personality and Bunta's indifference isn't because he's immune to emotions or that he doesn't care at all.

I am too in love with Initial D. I really need to get to Gunma and soon. *winces*

Thank you for reading!

Sincerely,  
Yui

8/26/2007 8:45 AM – LA  
8/27/07 12:45 AM - Tokyo


End file.
